a filmmaker in-the-making… an author looking at other authors…

Tag Archives: Abbie Cornish

Set in 2028 Detroit, Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – a loving husband, father and good cop – is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp seizes this opportunity to make him into a half-man, half-machine police officer.

With its combination of B-movie kitsch, sci-fi action and satirical social commentary, Paul Verhoeven’s original Robocop was a product of its time. Having thoroughly enjoyed it as a child on VHS, I owned a Robocop action figure, played the Robocop video game on Gameboy and even faithfully watched the sequels without any sense that the stories started to deteriorate in quality. Initially the first film worked as a highly violent action film and it was only later as an adult that I caught on with the satirical bits.

Hearing about this upcoming Robocop remake, I wondered if those satirical elements would work again. Yes, technology today has now caught up with what was shown in the original film, but that doesn’t necessary mean there is anything substantial to be attacked satirically. I assumed it was going to be more focused on the action sci-fi elements.

But my prediction was wrong. The new Robocop gets right what I thought it would have fumbled, the social satire, and drops the ball exactly where I never would have expected, namely the Robocop story itself. The satire elements with Samuel L. Jackson doing a parody of Fox News, makes up for the most entertaining segments but it is the only condensed source of satire. The satire works and is surprisingly relevant, but it is not as naturally incorporated into its fictional world as the original. Every segment with Jackson’s TV host feels like a break from the main narrative.

Joel Kinnaman does a decent job with the material he is given, but the story is essentially not focused on Alex Murphy. The remake version of Murphy and he is not portrayed as a warm friendly guy like Peter Weller, or at least the story is not showing it. It is a long wait before Robocop officially becomes Robocop and does the Robocop thing, as we are shown the entire production process of his creation. It is here in the second act where the story starts to sag. It is also where the action scenes begin, which are decently designed and choreographed, but ultimately are dull because there is no gravitas behind them.

Abbie Cornish plays Murphy’s wife seriously, replacing Nancy Allen’s Officer Anne Lewis as Murphy’s anchor to his own humanity, is unfortunately wasted from having no character progression or payoff.

The R-rated violence was an essential element to the original Robocop, establishing great nasty villains and touched upon themes of dehumanization and human conscience versus the judgment of a machine. Whether the ultra violence is included in this telling is irrelevant. There are many things movies can get away with a PG-13 rating now than in the eighties. I do not need this remake to be ultra violent. What I want is the scenes to be emotionally gripping, and this did not achieve that.

The main debate between Gary Oldman’s kindhearted robotics scientist and Michael Keaton’s slimy Omnicorp CEO, representing the individual versus the corporation, is the heart of the film. And it is quite ironic actually. Even down to making Robocop black and riding a black motorcycle, visually reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (frankly, the original suit still looks cooler), Robocop plays like a film that has been workshopped by a committee of producers. Robocop, or as he referred to in the film, “the Tinman”, just needed more heart.

Seven Psychopaths takes its central gag from Adaptation in that it’s about an author struggling trying to write the ideal original story, trying to avoid cliches and climatic gunfights but then at the end the author picks up a gun and shoots his way out of his problems, ironically juxtaposing the exact situations he’s trying to creatively avoid. It simultaneously addresses and pokes fun at the author’s eternal struggle to balance his own personal voice and the necessary components of what makes a story entertaining. So, does Seven Psychopaths bring insight to the craft of storytelling? Not exactly. Is it funny? Yes.

Colin Farrell plays a good straight man and Woody Harrelson makes a hilarious villain. Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken both balance the movie’s post-modern aesthetic by adding humanity to the story. With all the post-modern cutaways, witty dialogue and crazy titles stopping the film to identify each psychopath, the movie titters on being self-indulgent but it does not because we believe their characters and care about them. The tone is balanced very well as a result and we are able to both laugh and take things seriously at the same time. Sam Rockwell steals the movie. The humanity he’s able to insert into his character is impressive. Even in his craziness, we understand how his mind works and believe that he is genuinely trying to help his friend. In the hands of a lesser actor, the movie would have collapsed.

Seven Psychopaths is Martin McDonagh’s second feature and it shows. It’s a film where the director is enjoying a bigger cast, bigger budget and more free reign. I don’t have a problem with that. However, In Bruges is still the superior film. It was a deeper film about guilt and redemption and even had a metaphysical layer that explored the idea of purgatory. I still read it occasionally as a screenplay. Seven Psychopaths is a good piece of fluff and flirts with the suggestion of deeper ideas ironically to get laughs. It’s really good fluff, but fluff nonetheless.